Grammar Peeves

[Mytical]

*laughs* I must have many people on here picturing me being pulled apart by horses...my grammar is atrocious, as is my spelling. While my vocabulary is actually extensive, English (the school class) was always the subject I struggled with. Love reading, love writing, but I know that I struggle with grammar and spelling.

[dalesys]

Mytical, as I started the original post with, and is hopefully true of most of us, we accept that a significant (and appreciated) minority strugle with the grammar and spelling of the "Angluish" language. My beef is with capable people falsely claiming to be handicapped.

With my love of transobliterating concepts I enjoy the frameshifts given by the dyslexic members of the communities I interact with. And in any sustained interaction, it becomes reasonably clear roughly where a person is on the continuum between a person who is unable to and one who refuses to.

[Ree]

There's a huge difference between someone making a post on a message board and a professional, either in the workplace or the media, who makes these types of errors.

I totally understand that some people do have dyslexia or other learning challenges, and I'm not looking for perfection.

I just want to be able to read a post and understand it.

I downloaded a spellchecker for my browser, and before I post, I look for all the red squiggly lines and right click to correct them.

I don't always catch them all, so I would be the last person to point the finger at someone's spelling or grammar errors.

(I do laugh at people who complain about other people's errors, though, when their own posts are filled with major errors.)

[taurinejunkie]

I've noticed and become annoyed at one of my coworkers making a recurrent mistake. In her defence (defense?), English is her second language; I may also be the one making a mistake.

When she explains the service to a new user, she always says, "Please address yourself directly to the customer" where she should, I believe, say something like "Please address the customer directly"** because of how the verb "address" works in English vs. in French. And, possibly because she has a good quarter of a century on me, she refuses to even consider the possibility that she's wrong. Iny my opinion, she makes the company look bad (or simply, not as good as it could) to our anglophone hearing users.

** Please correct me if I'm wrong.

[MoonCat]

Well, according to thefreedictionary.com, it is correct to say "address yourself to", but she could use your phrase, "address the customer directly," too. They both say the same thing.

[BookstoreEscapee]

One of the things I may or may not encourage with a teaching placement is the idea of an "Oops board". The idea is that students would be encouraged to bring in newspaper articles, catalogues, fliers, notices, photos of notices etc. where there's a spelling or grammar bungle and put them up on said "Oops Board."

I think that's a great idea!

I will admit to saying "me and Colleen" when talking about my best friend...but I only say it to my mom because it drives her crazy. I did it as a kid and she would correct me so I started doing it on purpose.

[Food Lady]

I heard one at work today: "I seen it at [forget what store she mentioned]...." It's either "I saw" or "I've seen". That error is sooooo common here.

[Iris Kojiro]

YES. YES. YES.

Our friends had a beautiful orange/white cat named....Bert. Short for....Sherbert. Arrgh.

Oh here's one...How do you pronounce the word "mauve"?

It rhymes with "cove." Most people say "mawve". Makes me grit my teeth when I get customers saying that.

I've made those two mistakes my whole life, but...

[HappyFun Ball]

I'll admit I make a lot of grammar mistakes, I didn't do well in English.

My peeves:

I've got some meat unthawing (You mean you are freezing/refreezing it?) If you are defrosting meat you are thawing it.

"For all intensive purposes."

[MoonCat]

"One in the same" - It's one and the same.
"Irregardless" - there's no such word. It's just "regardless."
Oh and my favorite one to hate. "I really miss not going there." No - you miss going there. Or whatever phrase..."I miss not doing that" or something similar...

[Chazzie]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this already, but I have a serious issue with "than"/"then" swaps. I know a certain CS poster that drives me nuts with this one

Oh, and when customers say they NEED something when really, they only WANT it. You don't NEED a donut, people!

[MoonCat]

Oh, and when customers say they NEED something when really, they only WANT it. You don't NEED a donut, people!

Well, that's debatable.

[Merriweather]

Context is everything. While I wouldn't think twice about spelling or grammar errors in a casual email from a friend, errors in the newspaper drive me up a wall. I definitely don't always speak perfectly, and I do take a few liberties with the English language in quick emails to someone close. However, I would take great pains to be as near perfect as I could on a resume or company report.

I admit I'm far from perfect, and have dangled many a participle with no shame whatsoever, not to mention splitting infinitives with abandon.
It's those errors that wouldn't have made it past a sixth grade teacher that feel like fingernails on a chalkboard to me.

I definitely have a few personal pet peeves that have me searching for the largest most compehensive grammar book I can find - in order to use it as a weapon Some have already been mentioned.

unnecessary apostrophes annoy the fuck out of me!

Couldn't have said it better myself. Why is it, no one can use an "S" to pluralize a word without adding an apostrophe? It's getting to the point I notice more when they actually get it right than when they get it wrong, simply because I so rarely see it used correctly.

Also, people who think that when referring to yourself and another person, you ALWAYS use "and I." Not true in every situation. To know whether to use "I" or "me", take out the other person's name and see how it sounds:

Applause! Yaay. That's such an easy one to figure out, no complicated rules to remember or anything, yet SO many people don't get it.


I'm actually quite tolerant of regional pronunciations - having lived so many places, and seen such a wide variance of what is "correct" depending on where you live. Such as Car Mel (emphasis on Mel, as in Flo's boss at the diner) and Car Mull (emphasis on the car), depending on whether you're in a town of that name (both spelled Carmel) in California or Indiana.

British place names especially can be pronounced oddly - after you repeat a name for a thousand years or so, it often ends up in a kind of verbal shorthand. Living near Cambridge, it took me a while to catch on that when someone said what sounded like Mawdlin college, they were actually referring to Magdelene college.

As someone posted, talk about wading thru the crick all you want, as long as you know to spell it creek

Oh, and my all time pet peeve - please be sure that the term you have heard used, but never seen written, is actually what you think it is before posting it for hundreds or thousands of people to read, such as on Craig's List.
My all time favourite example of this was the woman who posted for a garage sale, with directions that included the fact that she lived not on a through street, but on a "cuddle sack".
Second place goes to the person who posted a real estate ad for an older house, the dining room still had it's original beautiful "Wayne's coating" on the walls.

And to those who struggle but still try, please don't take offence. All comments are aimed at those who either know proper grammar and refuse to use it at all, or those who don't know it, don't want to know it, and yet still expect to be taken as seriously as those who do make an effort.

[Eireann]

Merriweather, your post reminded me of something I saw on another site. A woman knew the term "faux pas", but didn't know how to spell it; she wrote about a "fo-pa" occurring at an event.

Last year, I read an article online that was deplorable. The apostrophes were misused everywhere; the article lacked many details; the grammar was bad. Yet the "author" (and I use the term VERY loosely) has a job working for a news station. When I pointed out the errors, there were many heated comments opposing mine (from the "author's" friends and family, I suspect). One guy went so far as to say that he didn't read the news for proper grammar and punctuation.

Sad.

[SongsOfDragons]

British place names especially can be pronounced oddly - after you repeat a name for a thousand years or so, it often ends up in a kind of verbal shorthand. Living near Cambridge, it took me a while to catch on that when someone said what sounded like Mawdlin college, they were actually referring to Magdelene college.

Oh HOLY HELL. This.

We were watching 'Dogs 101' a while back, and it was talking about the Norwich Terrier. Pronouncing it 'Norr-which'.

@.@

AUUUUGH. I couldn't watch it, it sounded DREADFUL. I suppose it's all right, it's just I'm used to the home saying. I posted on FB afterwards, giving the correct pronounciation - 'Norritch'. A Yank friend of mine commented '*has pronounced it wrong his entire life* XP' and a Brit friend commented 'People from Norfolk say it as Narrch, so... '

XD It was amusing. I just wonder how some folk pronounce some of the odder names in the UK...we went through Housemate's big book of Cathedrals recently, having a giggle at awful potential pronounciations of some settlements...